Ethereum Bubble

This week, I was contacted by a journalist requesting my comments regarding a response to the following tweet by @tracyalloway, the managing editor at Bloomberg Markets:

My response was the following:

The reporter sought me out to understand the purpose of my comment. The question of whether or not I was responsible for the post on Instagram came up. My comment on Twitter was borne of healthy skepticism of the boasting that one may find on social networks.

Firstly, I have an Instagram account, but I don’t see the value in using it. My interactions in social media are limited to Facebook and Twitter, though I must admit that I use Facebook mostly to remind me of birthdays of old friends and acquaintances. Call me shy or introverted, but I don’t find value in publicly posting pictures or updates of activities. Twitter provides me with enough exposure to share thoughts and information, without the intrusiveness that you often find on other social networks.

Secondly, I may be a little old school or perhaps it is because of the experience in my own life that have led me to doubt the veracity of claims of “newfound” riches. It is possible that the boast comes from a “lottery winner”, a person that has no idea how to manage the risk of losing it all.

In both cases, it is ironic that someone, who is “sophisticated” enough to have invested in Ethereum and have that large of an account would ignore the risk of drawing much attention to himself/herself. In addition, the “sophisticated” normally do not feel the need to boast about it on social media. I do not consider myself sophisticated, that requires a certain amount hubris, but I do believe I recognize who is or isn’t.

That said, it’s interesting to know how many ETH’s are in circulation and what is the market value. As per etherscan.io, actual supply today is 93,304,278.16 with $16,933,793,442 in market value at today’s price of $181.49/USD. At its peak of $397.18, the market value was over $37.058 billion and the aforementioned holder had around 0.6% of the market.

On the day of the ETH page post, ETH closed at $341.93 and if this person still hasn’t sold, he/she is down -54.3% from the peak and down -46.9% from the post. I truly hope this person is “sophisticated” enough to recognize price trends and is able to hold through what could be a lengthy downturn. It is pretty clear to see that parabolic moves in any asset are usually short-lived.